Part 16

The ruins of Linturno lay beneath us in the valley like a heap of white stones, like a strip of dry shore, in the midst of the sweet dead waters, where only yesterday by a double miracle she had cast a spell over the water-lilies and over my soul. The spell was still upon me whenever I looked at her. Seated on a boulder in the same attitude as when seated that first day on the plinth, she looked like one of the immortal statues. Once again I gazed at her, and noticed how, although present, she was yet far away, as she had been that day; and I thought again: “It is right she should remain untouched. Only by a god could she be possessed without shame. Never shall her body bear the disfiguring weight; never shall the flood of milk mar the pure outline of her bosom....”

An inward impulse made me start to my feet as if to free myself from a restraint, and turning to her who was gathering the little flowers in the crevices of the rocks, I said: “As you are not tired, Anatolia, will you come up to the top with me?”

“I am quite ready,” she assented in her clear cordial voice; and she went up to Massimilla and laid the flowers in her lap.

Violante sat still in the same attitude, holding her veil between her fingers--impassive as though she had not heard. But I felt that her eyes were not looking at outward things, and I was troubled, as though a ray of the fascination flowing from the mysterious depths on which her gaze was fixed had penetrated me.

“Don’t be long in coming down!” Oddo begged in his imploring tones, his pale face betraying the discomfort, the perpetual fear of giddiness which he felt on those heights. “We shall wait for you.”

The peak of Corace rose up against the sky as bare and sharp as a helmet, leaning over a little towards the west; and the path ascending it ran along a steep rib as narrow as the edge of a precipice, dividing the two slopes. The passage was so difficult and dangerous that I offered Anatolia my hand for support, and, smiling, she laid hers in mine as she stumbled over the rough rocks. We were out of sight already, free and alone, monarchs of the vast space. Every breath seemed to purify the blood in our veins and to lighten the weight of the flesh. And the aromatic essences which the heat of the sun, like a powerful chemical, pressed out of the rare Alpine plants, quickened the rhythm of our life.

We stopped, both suddenly out of breath, and our hands, which had been too tightly clasped, unloosed themselves. I looked in my companion’s eyes, but she was no longer smiling. Her face became grave, almost sad, as if overshadowed by a regret.

“Let us stop here,” she murmured, lowering her eyelids. “I cannot go any further....”

“A little further,” I said, for a vehement desire to reach the summit was spurring me on, “only a few steps more, and we shall be at the top!”

“I cannot go any further,” she repeated in an exhausted voice unlike her own, and she passed her hands over her face as if to brush away something that distressed her.

Then she tried to smile at me.

“What a strange illusion!” she added. “The top is a long way off yet. We always seem about to reach it, and the higher one goes, the further off it seems to be.”

Then after a pause, in which she seemed to be listening to her own deep heart--

“And there are souls suffering down below!”

She turned her face, on which the shadow of some thought had fallen, towards the place where her sisters were waiting.

“Let us go back, Claudio,” she added, in a tone that I cannot forget, for never did human voice express so many wonderful things so briefly.

“Dear, dear Anatolia!” I broke out, seizing her hands, overcome by the extraordinary feeling aroused in me by those simple words of hers, which I took to be the unmistakable indication of an inward emotion that was almost divine. “Let me first say to you what my silence has told you more than once.... Where can I offer my love more worthily than here on this height, to you who are the highest of created beings, Anatolia?”

She turned very pale, not like one who hears tidings of joy long waited and prayed for, but like one who receives an invisible blow in a vital part; and though apparently motionless, in spirit she was shaken towards me by some strange fearful shudder, by some instinctive movement of horror; and this I saw, not with my eyes, but with one of those unknown senses that sometimes manifest themselves in a momentary vibration on the surface of the human nerves, and then disappear again for ever, leaving the consciousness amazed.

She cast a look of indefinable anxiety around her.

“You speak as if we were alone,” she said vaguely, “as if I were alone ... as if I were alone....”

“Anatolia, what is the matter with you?” I asked, troubled by her inexplicable distress, by the deep change in her face, the incoherence of her words.

And a thought flashed across my uncertainty. Had she not been suddenly assailed, she accustomed for so many years to her gloomy prison, she the resigned martyr within the ancient walls, had she not perhaps been suddenly assailed by that mysterious terror, that kind of panic which reigns among the solitudes of stern and silent mountains? Yes; no doubt she was a prey to this terrible fascination, and her spirit had gone astray under it.

A savage scene lay at our feet on every side in the glaring light. The chain of rocks, bare and clear in their desolate barrenness to their remotest passes, stretched away like a mass of gigantic and monstrous relics, left for the amazement of mankind as traces of some primeval battle of the Titans. Ruined towers, broken walls, fallen citadels, crumbled domes, tottering porches, mutilated colossi, prows of vessels, backbones of monsters, bones of Titans, every kind of monstrosity was simulated by the jutting peaks and dark ravines of this formidable range. The distance was so transparent that I could distinguish every outline as clearly as if my eyes were beholding, on an infinitely larger scale, the rock which Violante had shown me from the window-sill with that creative sweep of her hand. The most distant peaks were engraved on the sky with the same precise sharpness of outline which the sloping sides of the crater close at hand assumed in the reflected rays of the sun. The vast mouth of the spherical crater gaped with a kind of eddying vehemence in the expression of its curves; it was like a whirlpool, although inert. In part grey like ashes, elsewhere red like rust, it was crossed here and there by long white streaks that sparkled like salt, and were reflected in the metallic calm of the water which had gathered at the bottom. And opposite us, overhanging the edge of the precipice like a petrified flock of sheep, was Secli, the solitary hermit-like village, where from time immemorial a small industrious population has busied itself in making strings for musical instruments.

“You are tired,” I said to my dear companion, trying to draw her under the shadow of a boulder, which I thought might screen her on one side at least from the sight of the space below, and give her back a sense of security. “You are tired, Anatolia; you are not used to such fatigue, and perhaps this view is rather terrible.... Lean back here and close your eyes for a little. I will stand beside you. Here is my arm. I can take you back without any danger. Now close your eyes for a little....”

Again she tried to smile at me.

“No, no,” she said; “don’t trouble, Claudio.”

Then after a pause, in a changed voice, and very low--

“It is not that.... If I closed my eyes, perhaps I should see....”

My heart was trembling like a leaf beneath a sudden breath of wind. And though Anatolia’s face was composed again into an expression of deep but calm sadness, and though a feeling of power over evil seemed diffused through her whole person, vague analogies led me to think of Antonello’s sudden attacks of distress, of that restlessness of his, which was an infallible warning, and of the visions of the future which lit up his pale eyes.

“Do you understand, Anatolia?” I asked, taking one of her hands, for we stood side by side leaning against the rock. “Do you understand that you, you alone, are the companion whose name my heart pronounced that evening when your father kissed my forehead in sign of consent? You rose and left the room softly like a spirit; and I, I don’t know why, imagined that your face was bathed in tears.... Tell me if you are weeping, Anatolia, and if my dream was dear to you!” She did not answer; but as I held her hand, it seemed to me that her purest heart’s blood flowed magnetically to the tips of her fingers.

“That evening,” I added, striving to intoxicate her with hope, “as I went back to Rebursa, I saw a star shining over one of my old towers; and your presence had filled my heart so full of faith, that what was mere chance seemed to me like a divine omen! From that time two figures have shone for me in that radiance.... You know whose the other is. I can hear the first words you spoke to me there on the steps, words which evoked the memory of 'immense kindness.’ All that day the figure your words had called up clung to your side to show me whom she had elected. She herself, on some future evening, will come with me into the dwelling which once was full of her smile, and now is deserted.... Look, down there!”

She looked at the distant towers of Rebursa down in the deep hollow where the hanging clouds were casting great circles of shadow; but her gaze passed on to Trigento, and during the interval marks of an inexpressible inward conflict passed over her face. She shook her head, and drew her hand out of mine.

“Happiness is forbidden me,” she said in a firm but sorrowful voice, keeping her eyes fixed on the garden of her agony, on the house of her martyrdom. “I, like Massimilla, am dedicated; and my vow also is irrevocable. And it is not only the action of my own will, Claudio. I feel now that the sacrifice is necessary, that I cannot escape from it. You heard the tone in my answer just now when you asked me to go up to the top with you. You saw how easy it was for me to climb with you, with the support of your hand. But now ... I have not been able to go any further; we did not reach the top. See: here I am, nailed to a rock. You make me an offer, the value of which you yourself cannot know as I know it; and here I am, weighed down by grief so heavy that I am afraid of being unable to bear it, I, who have never been afraid of suffering!”

I dared not interrupt her nor touch her. A sort of religious awe filled my soul. Overmastered by even stronger emotion than had overcome me on that solemn evening, I could feel, without turning round, the throbbing of something infinitely noble and mysterious at my side, something resembling the divine mysteries guarded under veils in the Holy of Holies in temples. Her voice was sounding close to my ear, yet it came from an infinite distance. Her words were simple, but they came from the summit of life, that pinnacle which the human soul can only reach when about to be transfigured into Ideal Beauty.

“Look, down there! Look at the house where from the first day we received you as a brother, where our father received you as a son, where you found the memory of your beloved dead kept fresh. Look how far away it seems! And yet I feel it bound to me by a thousand invisible ties stronger than any chain. I feel that even here my life mingles with the faint life suffering down there. Ah, perhaps you cannot understand! But think, Claudio, of the atrocity of the fate that hangs over us; think of that poor raving mother, of that broken-down feeble old man, of that victim always hovering on the border of madness, of that other, too, who is under the same sentence, and of the horror of contagion, and the solitude, and the grief.... Ah, you cannot understand! From the first day I feared to sadden you; I always tried to put myself between you and our misfortune. Very seldom, perhaps never, have you breathed the real sadness of our house. We met you in the open air, among the flowers which we learned, for your sake only, to love again; and in our neglected garden you have been able to bring some things to life.... But think of the hidden anguish! You cannot see; but I can see from here everything that goes on in there, as much as if the walls were made of glass, and I were touching them with my forehead. Life seems suspended; the father and son are shut up in one room and dare not go out, and dare not breathe; they listen to every sound, one increases the suffering of the other, and both are helplessly waiting for my return, and listening eagerly, hoping to catch the sound of my voice and my step. And _she_ is raving, searching for me in all the passages, all the rooms, calling me aloud, stopping before a closed door and listening or knocking, and my two poor souls inside hear her breathing, and start at every knock, and can do nothing but look in each other’s eyes, my God!”

She pressed her hands to her temples with an instinctive movement, as if to force back some rebound of sorrow; and her whole body, leaving the support of the boulder, leant over towards the distant scene of her martyrdom. And for a few seconds, with the anguish she had communicated to me clutching at my throat, I bent over in the same attitude, I hung over the edge of the precipice, with my gaze fixed on the distant home where those souls were suffering.

“Think,” she continued, in a broken voice now, “think, Claudio, what would happen to them if I were not there, if I forsook them! Even when I leave them for a short time, I feel such regret, such remorse as I cannot describe to you. Every time I cross the threshold to go out, a gloomy presentiment weighs on my heart; and it seems to me as if on my return I should find the house full of shrieks and lamentations....”

An uncontrollable shudder was now shaking her whole figure, and her eyes were dilated as if some cruel vision were filling her with horror.

“Antonello,” she stammered; and for a few seconds she could not utter another word.

I looked at her with inexpressible anguish; and my soul suffered with hers in each contraction of her dear lips. And the vision in her eyes passed into mine; and I saw Antonello’s wasted, white face, and the rapid quiver of his eyelids, and his painful smile and disordered movements, and the waves of terror which used suddenly to sweep over his long thin body, shaking it like a fragile reed.

“Antonello ... tried to kill himself.... Only I know of it.... Nobody else knows it; not even Oddo. Alas!”

She trembled so much that she could not control herself as she leant against the rock. “One evening God warned me, God sent me.... His name be praised for ever!... I went into his room ... and I found him....”

She was choking, and her fingers wandered distractedly to her throat, as if the noose were strangling her; she was trembling, overcome, losing all courage at the recollection, she who had been able to repress her cries of horror at the sight of the half-dead man, she who had been able to call up the strength of a man in her wrists, to finish her work without asking for help, to hide the horrible secret in her own bosom, and then to live on from one fear to another, from one anxiety to another, with this tragic vision haunting her soul! Thus she revealed herself to me in her sublime truth, desperately devoted to an affection which had its roots in the deepest and most sacred instincts of her being. The voice of blood seemed to cry aloud in all her veins: the ties of blood bound every fibre together. She was born to wear the sweet powerful fetters till death. She was ready to burn herself as a sacrifice that she might nourish the faint flame that flickered on the household hearth. And therefore with what unspeakable love would she have loved the child of her womb!

“You speak of forsaking,” I said, making a painful effort to speak, for any expressions of mine seemed untimely and feeble after the grandeur and beauty of the sentiment just revealed; “you speak of forsaking, Anatolia; and you forget that from the very first day I found my father, my sisters, and my brothers in your house; and you do not know how full my heart is of filial and fraternal piety, not comparable to yours, which is superhuman, but still worthy of serving it by

## actions....”

She shook her head.

“Ah, Claudio,” she replied, with a sorrowful smile on her dry lips, “your generosity deceives you. My soul is still dazzled by the flames of your dream, and troubled by a sort of repressed violence and dangerous ardour which from time to time flashes from you. You are stirred by the longing for strife and power; and you are determined by every means to force life to fulfil her promises to you. You are young and proud of your lineage, and lord of your own powers, and confident in your faith. Who shall set a limit to your conquests?”

As if suddenly inspired, she had thrown the whole virtue of her clear, warm voice into these last words; and I understood by the thrill they sent through me what a powerful stimulator of energy she would have been, she who with all her kindness and patience possessed the fundamental instincts of her imperious race.

“But imagine, Claudio, a conqueror dragging after him a cart full of sick folk, and seeing their wasted faces and hearing their lamentations as he prepared himself for battle! Can you imagine such a thing? If life is cruel, he who is resolved to combat her must of necessity take into account the strength of the enemy; and every hindrance will sooner or later arouse his annoyance and his anger....”

She had succeeded in mastering the excess of her emotion; and once more I beheld her brave firmness as she spoke on without a quiver in her voice.

“And I, my very self, should I not at last be forgotten? Should I not be carried away altogether on the stream of new affections, new cares, by the intoxication of your hopes? The task you would assign to the companion of your efforts is too great, Claudio.... Your words are still in my memory.... Alas, it is not possible to feed two flames at the same time! The new one would in a short time become so voracious that I should have to sacrifice all the riches of my soul to it; and the old one so feeble, that if I turned my head away it would go out.”

She was silent, and her head sank again. But with a sudden movement, as if her former anxiety had returned, she looked up and around her, and the working of her parched lips betrayed her thirst to me. Then she turned upon me, and fixing her eyes on mine with a kind of impetuous force, she asked--

“Is it true that your heart has chosen me? Have you examined your heart to the depths? Or does some illusion hang over you like a veil?”

I was so much disturbed by her look, and these sudden doubts of hers, that I felt myself turn pale as if she had accused me of falsehood.

“Anatolia, what do you mean?”

She left the support of the rock, and made a few faltering steps forward; then she paused as if to listen, anxious and agitated.

“There is some soul suffering here on these paths,” she repeated, in the same tone as before; for a few moments she stood perplexed, and her hand went up to her brow with a vague gesture.

Then turning to me, rapidly, anxiously, as if she were being driven on, and was afraid of not having time to say the words--

“To-morrow I am going away. I must go with Massimilla. I have not the courage to let her start alone with Oddo. I must go with her to the very door of her retreat. She is going to pray for us.... I know she is not going there for consolation, but as to death; and so I must help her. I shall stay away for several days. For several days one of us will be alone at Trigento.... She is the eldest; she has almost the right.... She is worthy.... I don’t know; your heart will tell you something, perhaps the truth.... I swear to you, Claudio, that I will pray with all the fervour I have in my soul that on coming back I may find that everything has fallen out for the good of all.... Who knows? Perhaps there is some great good in store for you. I believe in your star, Claudio. But I am under a prohibition.... I can’t explain, I can’t explain.... There is a shadow over my will.... Just now a strange fear came over me, and then a sadness, a sadness I had never known before....”

She stopped, gasping, confused, miserable, as if the feeling of the infinite desolation spreading round us under the burning heat had swept over her again.

“And you too, how you are suffering!” she murmured, without looking at me.

And stretching out both her hands to me in one supreme effort--

“Now, good-bye! we must go back. Thank you, Claudio. Remember me always as a devoted sister. You will never find my tenderness wanting....”

She turned away her face, for her eyes were filling with tears, and I kissed both her hands.

“Good-bye,” she repeated, trying to get up and begin the descent; but she tottered on the rock.

“I entreat you, Anatolia, stay a little longer!” I implored, as I held her up. “Just stay a few minutes longer here in the shade, that you may get back your strength.... The descent is very steep.”

“They are waiting for us! They are waiting for us!” she stammered, almost beside herself, and her frenzied anxiety communicated itself to me. “Let us go, Claudio! I will lean on you. If we stayed any longer, I should feel worse, I should not be able to go one step.... Ah, this horrible thirst!”